The Dears go to the edge and back

The Dears: Murray Lightburn is ready to be redeemed

Murray Lightburn is ready to be redeemed. As the “lighthouse keeper” for Montreal orchestral pop noir romantique rockers The Dears for the past 17 years, Lightburn has bared witness to, and been an active part in, the seemingly endless highs and vertiginous falls that have become the fabric of one of the most fabled, beleaguered and ambitious musical journeys in Canadian music history.

So, at the tender age of 41, the father of two is ready to confess his sins.

“I’m a repentant sinner,” he admits while taking a sip of single malt whisky he keeps in his home studio. “I fully understand my mistakes.”

This would probably be a good time to mention it’s 10 a.m.

Lightburn’s religious phrasing may be meant for his interpersonal issues, but he may as well be discussing his latest venture, the career-spanning documentary Never Destroy Us: The Dears at Pasagüero, which airs on CBC this Saturday. Originally conceived as a concert film, Lightburn says Never Destroy Us quickly evolved into something greater: a second chance to reintroduce The Dears, sans stigma.

“We went to Mexico a couple of years ago to premiere [2011’s Degeneration Street] live and I can’t remember how it came about, but we filmed the concerts,” Lightburn recalls. Months later “an old friend of mine was producing this series for the CBC and I guess she saw this stuff online and asked if we could put together a concert film?

“But, you think about the aunties and uncles who will be watching this and you worry about it not having any context, so we used it as a springboard, an opportunity to talk about how we wound up in Mexico.”

After some meandering on his part, Lightburn was convinced to direct the project himself.

Now that this doc is done I’ll never have to look back again.

“So here’s this band playing a gig in Mexico, who gives a s–t?” Lightburn explains of his thought process. “So if you give some context like who went and what that means in the context of this band hopefully it’s a little more ‘compelling.’ ”

And so began the arduous process of digging up 17 years of history.

Wikipedia lists The Dears as having 19 official members since their earliest incarnation as a Brit-rock-indebted quartet, but that hardly includes the orchestras, brass bands and fill-ins that have revolved around Lightburn and his wife, Natalia Yanchak, who have been the group’s only two constants since the late-’90s.

Equally, their discography lists five albums but avoids mention of their dubbing as “Probably the best new band in the world,” by British tastemaker magazine NME, or nights spent delivering their live show, once hailed as “the sonic equivalent of seeing the face of God,” to tens of thousands at London’s legendary Wembley Stadium. It also avoids what Lightburn refers to as nights “that would resemble the Mötley Crüe diaries” — incendiary infighting that eventually led to a near implosion.

Likewise, Lightburn made the decision to eschew both polarities.

“[Never Destroy Us] was designed for somebody who has never heard of the band, so we tried to avoid forcing down people’s throats like, ‘Oh, look how big we got’ and ‘Oh, look how sh–ty things got,’” he says, pointing out that both are touched upon lightly in the hour-long documentary.

“This story is very specific. It’s not really the story of the band. It tells a big chunk of the story of the band but the point is to tell what we did on stage. I think the rope that kept pulling us along was, how does that get us back to the show in Pasagüero?”

The result is a beginner’s guide for would-be fans of a band who, perhaps, never truly lived up to the hype that seemed to constantly swell around them.

“The only qualification I had for the project was that I had been in the band for 17 years, so I was just going to tell the story the best way I can,” Lightburn explains. “Now that this doc is done I’ll never have to look back again.